Study of a 2 × 2 MOEMS optical switch with electrostatic actuating

Based on the torsion dynamic theory, the method and relative formulae are presented for analyzing the actuating voltage and the switching time, on which the effect of the air squeeze film damping is already considered, for a 2 × 2 MOEMS optical switch with electrostatic actuating. The computed results show that the switching time will increase markedly under considering the air damping. Furthermore, an optical technique is described for the measurement of the actuating voltage and switching time of the device. Theoretical and experimental results obtained demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. The actuating voltage is about 50 V, and the switching time Toff and Ton are about 4.8 and 12.5 ms, respectively.